galaxy of the lost
by missing-in-venice
Summary: Elena Gilbert is gone. She's no more. Elena Gilbert is not Elena Gilbert anymore./ Dark Season 4 speculation, contains character death. D/E.
1. I

Grief. Loss. The pain of it can leave you crippling, leave you so desperate for relief that you'd give anything just to turn it all off. The words resonate in the back of her head, a vague memory swirling just beyond her reach. She lets it melt away, doesn't bother with it as she sits, clutching his chest and gasping at the hole ripping through her. She'd felt something akin to this before, but the feeling seemed so inconsequential to this one.

There are words coming from her mouth. Just three. On repeat over and over again, as if the force and meaning of them could bring him back, make those icy eyes snap open again. Tears run down her face and drip on her shaking hands and she briefly wonders if it's raining. Rain. Under an umbrella. Hands clutching her face gingerly, hands that she never knew could be so gentle. _"I know, Elena." _The memory sends a fresh wave of crippling pain through her and she sobs harder, bringing her hands up to cup her own face, as if willing they were his.

"Elena-"

For a moment, she thinks it's him, and she whips around eagerly, about to be mad at such a cruel joke. But she blinks though her tears and sees Stefan, olive eyes wide with pain. His eyes wander from her to the body she'd clutching in her arms, and she sees tears that match her own fall down his face.

Suddenly, she finds herself on top of him, an already bloodied stake propped over his heart. "_You."_ She hisses, and she moves the stake so it's beneath his ribcage, just like _he _taught her. "This is your fault. You turned my brother into a monster, and now look what he did." She wishes her voice could be emotionless, but it's guttural and broken and hysterical. Stefan doesn't fight, he just lies there, and she thinks she hears something breaking inside of him.

"I know." Is all he says, and looks like he'd like nothing more than to be staked.

She wants to. God, she wants to. But some buried, barely there rational part of her whispers that this is Stefan. The boy you once loved. The boy you still love. His brother.

Elena stands up and does the only thing that could possibly feel right in that moment. She runs.

* * *

When she's far enough away, she screams. Screams like she's wanted to for so long. Screams as she feels the last piece of her sanity crumpling. Screams until every thought is driven out of her head. Screams until blood vessels pop. Screams until she can't feel anything anymore.

* * *

It's storming, Elena thinks. The clouds above her are churning and white light thunders in the distance while droplets of water plummet down on her harshly. The sky is an angry gray-blue, and Elena thinks of a pair of eyes flashing with impulse and passion.

"Elena."

Barely startled, Elena turns around silently to face him. _He looks miserable, _she thinks idly as she looks over his soaked clothes, tear-streaked face grief stricken green eyes. They stare at each other for a moment, one calculating and one blank.

"You didn't." Stefan says slowly, shaking his head. Grief and dread shine through his eyes, and she pities him. "Elena, _no."_

"Yes." She whispers, and turns around the face the sky once more.

* * *

She groans as the warm blood hits her tongue, and the faceless stranger whimpers beneath her. She pulls back when their heartbeat slows, and she stands still for a moment, reveling in the high pulsing through her. For a second, she swears she hears someone behind her, smiling with approval and waiting with open arms before she runs into them, basking in his pride.

When she turns around, she's faced with a brick wall.

Elena feels a neck snap beneath her hands and a body fall to the ground, and she drags the body off wordlessly.

* * *

"I'm going to bring him back." She announces grandly, with flourish, and grins as Stefan stares at her unbelievably. She quirks her head to one side as she watches an unknown emotion pass through his eyes, almost like remembrance.

"You're _what?_" A high pitched voice hisses from the couch, and Elena flinches at the unwelcome sound that she resembles to a pig squeal. She ignores Caroline, keeping her eyes on the younger Salvatore. She'd found lately that she has no tolerance for the blonde anymore.

"Elena-"

"_Elena Elena Elena." _She mocks, scoffing. "Can't you say anything other than that?"

Stefan sighs, shutting his eyes momentarily before opening them. He speaks as if talking to a child. "Look, I don't know what you have planned, but-"

"He's your _brother._" She says, suddenly serious as she stares at him unwaveringly. "And you feel responsible for his death, which you _are._" She states, once again feeling that loathing blame erupt inside her like a volcano. She sees Caroline stand up in her periphery, and she comes to stand at Stefan's side defensively. "Easy, Elena." She says, staring at her once friend and attempting to find something recognizable in her eyes.

"Tell me, Caroline." Elena muses, "Why _do _you stand up for Stefan so much?"

Caroline blinks and stutters, thrown off by the question. She stands up taller as she answers, "He's a better friend than you are." She says, and Elena sees Stefan shift uncomfortably beside her.

"Right, a better _friend. _Remember when you hated me because he liked me and not you?"

Caroline flinches. "Remember when you jumped in bed with his brother barely a day after you broke up with him?"

Elena's smile disappears and she leans forward, like a cat getting ready to pounce. Opening her mouth to reply, she's quickly shot down when Stefan's voice interrupts.

"Guys, _stop."_ He commands, looking at Caroline and he shakes her head at her while a silent understanding passes through them. _It's not fair_, Elena thinks. She used to have someone like that, someone who understood her so completely, someone she never had to even speak to before he got the message. The jealousy passes through her in a burst before it's gone, just like everything else she feels these days.

"What do you need me to do?" Stefan asks as he turns towards her, and Elena presses her lips together. If this works out, she'll have him back soon enough.

* * *

She looks in the mirror and doesn't recognize herself, doesn't think of the reflection staring back at her as Elena Gilbert. Even the name sounds foreign on her tongue as she repeats it to herself. _Elena Gilbert, Elena Gilbert, Elena Gilbert. _She thinks of a girl with long, mahogany hair and eyes to match it. A sweet, compassionate smile. The girl who feels for everyone. The girl who can find the good in anybody. _Elena Gilbert. _

No, she's no longer Elena Gilbert. She's someone else now.

* * *

She dreams of him a lot, as if that would be a surprise. Sometimes, he just sits beside her and holds her hands in his. Sometimes, they're walking on a beach and neither of them have their daylight rings on. "How are we not burning?" she always asks.

"We're always burning." He replies and she accepts it, because it's _him _and of course she trusts him.

Sometimes, they talk. "This isn't who you are." He tells her. "This isn't the Elena I know."

"It's the Elena I have to be now." She replies.

"Do you _want _to be this Elena?" he asks her.

She barely thinks about the answer. "No." she says, "I don't."

Other times, the dreams turn into memories. She's writhing under him while he moves inside her, lips and hands everywhere while her fingers are braided into his hair. He opens his eyes above her and Elena thinks that she'd happily drown again in the clear blue depths.

But she always wakes up, sweating with desire and hands clutching empty sheets. Those are the only times she lets herself feel, and she sobs into her pillow at the loss that seems to radiate throughout her entire being.

_Xxxxxxxx_

_It was always him, _she thinks. She wishes she had just realized it so much earlier, and she agonizes over the loss of time that came from her denial.

_It was always him._

* * *

**_AN: Well, I really just had to write that. Sorry if it's kind of random, but it comes from the speculation that Damon is going to die in one of the upcoming episodes. I don't know if I believe it, but it seems possible. I can really see Elena turning it all off like this if he dies, especially if it's right after she realizes she loves him. I can see her turning into kind of another version of Damon, when he was trying to get Katherine out the tomb. Wouldn't that be ironic._**

**_I have no idea if I'll continue this. Probably not, but never say never. I own nothing, and the title is from the song by Lightspeed Champion, but I've been listening to the Florence and the Machine cover of it. Review and tell me what you think? :)_**


	2. II

The days pass by in one fuzzy blur. Some days, she just lies in her bed and thinks. Of him, mostly. Sometimes it's important stuff; the things she regrets ever saying to him, all their fights, the highest points of their relationship. Other times, she thinks of things that probably don't really matter. Like the way his hair curled around his ear, or the way he always found an excuse to touch her, or how his arm curled perfectly around her waist during their short time together. The memories might seem inconsequential now, but they're all she has left of him. The small rememberences of him, like bits of brightly colored sea glass amongst an array of gray colored stones, stick themselves on every crevice of her being. Behind her eyelids, so that everytime she closes them she's forced to watch on repeat, all the while thinking of the things she could have done differently, _should _have done differently. But, always, she's unable to change anything. And the sick part is, she likes the pain it brings. Welcomes it, really. It's a daily reminder that without him, there is nothing but pain. Because despite what everybody else thought (and still thinks) Damon was not darkness. He was her light, her beacon. He was going to drag her through the cusps of vampirism without her losing herself along the way. And she had almost been there, had been so _close _to successfully juggling her human self and vampire self at the same time. But when he died, the lighthouse went dark and now she's floating away from Elena Gilbert and is almost to the shore of being someone completely different. Without Damon, there is no lighthouse, there is no dock.

There is no Elena Gilbert.

* * *

"I can't help you, Elena."

Bonnie's words go straight through her, and for a brief moment, she thinks she's joking. There was a time when Bonnie Bennett lived for being sarcastic, it was something she was always good at. Elena could never tell what was to be serious and what was to be sarcastic with her, and it had been a trait that she always associated her best friend with. But then the vampires and werewolves and hybrids entered the picture, and she lost the sarcastic edge. Elena began associating the quality with somebody else, asocciated it with smirks and sexiness and bourbon, and now she knows that Bonnie Bennett is being one hundred percent serious.

She goes on before Elena can reply. "Bringing back a human is one thing. But a _vampire?_ Do you know the consequences it would bring, on all of us?"

Elena blinks. Yes, she has an idea. "I don't care. I know there's a way. There's always a _way, _Bonnie."

The witch shakes her head. When did she start referring to her as 'the witch'? "Elena, no. I'm not doing it." Her hazel eyes turn to steal and it matches the branded iron that's currently pulsating in Elena's heart. She hears a _thud _and feels skin under her hand, and realizes that she's suddenly got Bonnie against a wall, fingers around throat. Bonnie, her oldest friend.

She's half expecting an anyurism, half expecting to be lit on fire. But Bonnnie just looks shocked, and scared, and Elena is reminded of when Tyler and his friends scared them at their fifth grade slumber party. She loosens her grip, and Bonnie falls to the ground, gasping. "You're lucky I still remember what it was like to be friends with you." Elena murmurs, and steps back.

She's thinking that she can find another witch when Bonnie stops her in her tracks. "I'll do it, I'll help you." she says. Elena turns back and raises an eyebrow, and Bonnie holds her stare.

"But when I get him back for you, I want you to leave. Both of you." Bonnie raises her chin, "Maybe things will finally be peaceful with you gone."

If Elena still felt, that sentence would have been a slap to the face. She'd be crying for days. But she doesn't, and it isn't. And it makes sense. Alot of sense. So she nods, and leaves.

* * *

The journal is roughly grabbed from her hands and she barely raises her head at Stefan's angry, annoyed look. He wraps the leather cord back around the book and stuffs it in the bookshelf, then proceeds to make a drink.

_"_I was reading that." She drawls, crossing her arms.

Stefan doesn't look at her. Nobody really does, anymore. Except Matt. "I'm not letting you read my journal so you can find more things to hold against me."

_True, _she thinks. Really, she does look for anything and everything to hold over Stefan. But she ignores him, anways. "I especially liked the part where you flat out wrote that you would _never_ lose me to your brother." She taunts, enjoying the way the vein in his forehead twitches. "Talk about dramatic irony."

"What do you want, Elena?" He asks, turning away from her. She wonders what ever became of them. Oh, yeah.

"I was just hoping for a bit of your time before you skip off to Caroline or Rebekkah or whoever's arms your crying in this week. Maybe Klaus?" It's a low blow, and she does feel a _tiny _bit guilty for it. But she hates how he looks at her now, with disgust and weariness and confusion, like he doesn't know who she is. Like he never knew who she was. Somewhere inside, Elena Gilbert screams that he doesn't deserve this from her. She thinks one word. _Damon._

Elena Gilbert quickly shuts up.

Stefan huffs, looking at her reproachfully. "What?" he asks, and Elena can practically hear the rest of the sentence _do you want from me. _

"Bonnie's gonna help us." She doesn't need to explain more, Stefan knows what she's talking about. He straightens up, the disgusted and wary look fading to a determined one. This is the Stefan she can be decent to.

"What do we have to do?"

Elena smiles. "Well, she said it has to be done when the 'moon and sun align'." She uses air quotes, waiting for it to sink in.

His eyebrows furrow, "An eclipse...? The next one is-"

"A month away." Elena says, leaning back in the arm chair. Finally, Elena and Stefan are once again on the same page.

* * *

Sometimes she wonders if this is how Damon felt while he waited to get Katherine out of the tomb. Did he spend some days a reckless, desperate mess, clinging to every memory and detail of her until his head hurt? Did he partially blame her for leaving him alone in this state of mind with no one to understand what exactly it was he was going through? Did he ever just want to end it all? That it'd be so, _so _easy. Ring off, curtain open, goodbye cruel world.

It's one of the only things that keeps her fueled most of the time; the fact that once, Damon, _her _Damon, went through all of this. The fact that he lived and breathed and thrived on the idea that soon, he would get the person he loved most back. Just like she is doing. Of course, Katherine was never in the tomb and nothing really ended up the way everyone thought it would, but still. Damon went decades doing what she's doing now. It's only been... about four months since his death. If Damon can do it, she can.

They are alike, after all.

* * *

Jeremy claims that he hasn't seen him. She asks, he shakes his head and looks down. This is repeated everyday.

Jeremy is lying.

It's in his heartbeat and dwindling thumbs and the inability to meet her eyes. But she doesn't press him about it. Elena doesn't have the energy to be a bitch to her brother, and most of the time, they just avoid each other. She can't be the responsible older sister and he can't be the dork younger brother anymore. Both of them have been tainted by blood and loss, and she thinks that Jeremy might be losing himself as well.

Honestly, Elena doesn't much want to talk to Damon through Jeremy. She's pretty sure he's making him lie about it for some reason or the other, thinking it's the 'selfless' thing to do. She's going to respect his judgement on this one, because even when he's dead, he's still trying to protect her. And it makes her smile, a real, honest to God smile that she lets no one see.

And also, she wants their first conversation to be real. No sirebond, no ghosts. Just them.

Real.

* * *

The morning of the eclipse, she almost feels human when she wakes up. Almost. She hums a popular song under her breath as she straightens her hair and for a moment, she almost feels like it's the first day of school before her parents died. Elena always loved the first day of school. She would see her friends, her aquaintences, her favorite teachers. It was a refreshing change to the boring, hot summer days that went by at an endless blur.

But Elena is not human, her parents are not alive, and this is not the first day of school.

But, by the end of the day, she'll have Damon back. Damon.

It's better than any first day of school. Better than any day ever.

* * *

The clearing is large, with trees circling it at every angle while the evening sun casts a red-orange glow on everything. Bonnie is busy flipping through one of her magic cookbooks with Jeremy huddled close to her. Stefan is already there, and Elena isn't surprised to see Caroline and Rebekkah flanking either side of him. Looks like there's a new triangle to choose teams on.

Damon's body is directly in the middle, under the sun. The mark left by the stake is covered by a clean shirt that she assumes Stefan put on him. He looks pale, lifeless, dead.

Bonnie straightens up when she sees her. "Elena, there's something you need to know-"

"Can we get this over with?" Rebekkah chimes, nodding to the sky. Everyone looks up and notices what's happening. The eclipse. Bonnie sighs through her teeth and shoots Elena a helpless look before walking over to the grimiore. Jeremy cuts his hand. There's jumbled words that nobody understands. A gust of wind. Jeremy squeezes the blood directly onto the spot where Damon's heart would be. Still chanting, Bonnie leans down and clutches his shoulders. Then all hell breaks loose. Elena imagines this is what a hurricane, tornado and earthquake must feel like combined. The ground is shaking, the trees look as if they might fall, the wind threatens to push her to the ground. There's blood oozing out of Bonnie nose, her ears, her mouth. But she keeps chanting. And then, it's over.

For a moment, everything is quiet. So very, very quiet. Everybody is holding their breath, until someone isn't. A gasp. Crystalline eyes open, alive.

Elena's gasping, too. She feels something connect inside her as she kneels next to him, desperately clutching him to her.

"_Damon._" she gasps, and she feels hot tears cascading down her cheeks, watches a drop fall on his hair.

She hugs him and he hugs her and- Wait, he _isn't _hugging her. Why isn't he hugging her? Why isn't he kissing her? There's something wrong.

Elena pulls back and stares at him, not understanding the confused look in his eyes. And he looks very, very confused. He furrows his eyebrows, his eyes flickering to everybody before settling on Stefan. "Stefan?" he asks, voice rough from disuse. Stefan nods, narrowing his eyes before turning to look at Bonnie, confusion dawning on him as well. Bonnie is grimacing guiltily, like she knows exactly what's going on.

Damon's eyes land back on me. "Katherine?"

She's pushing him away so fast that he almost falls back, then rounds on Bonnie. "What is this, Bonnie? What's going on?" she snaps, feeling panic and anger throbbing inside her wildely.

"I... tried to tell you. But-"

"What's. Wrong?" She asks slowly, staring unblinkingly at the witch.

Bonnie swallows heavily, "He doesn't remember, Elena. He remembers nothing from after the day he was turned."

The words slowly enter her brain, jumbled and distant. _Remembers... nothing... after... turned. _

She turns to look at Damon, and the look in his eyes confirm it. He thinks she's Katherine. The name Elena means nothing to him. Every moment they shared together is erased. Like when somebody draws a masterpiece on a whiteboard, and somebody comes along and wipes it away with a single stroke. Lost. Dead. Gone. Astray. Consumed.

Elena Gilbert is gone. She's no more. Elena Gilbert is not Elena Gilbert anymore.

Elena Gilbert runs.

* * *

_**A/N: Umm. Ok, I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not sure why I continued this. But the possibility of Damon dying becomes more realistic each day and I know it will probably end tragically for D/E, so I wrote this as a kind of therapy. I tried to write a happily ever after, really, I did. But it just didn't sit well with me. So, I wrote this... thing, instead. It's angsty, I know. Please don't hate me. I might continue it, so I won't put the complete mark on it just yet. **_

_**Please, tell me what you think, even if it's nasty. I welcome it. And also, I apologize if there's misspellings or grammar issues, I typed this on my ghetto laptop which is a pieceofshit. Let me know and I'll try and fix it. Thanks for reading :)**_


End file.
